Whanganui-raised comedian Ray O'Leary has had a rapid rise in the New Zealand comedy scene. Photos/ Supplied
Whanganui's Ray O'Leary has had a rapid rise in the comedy world and less than four years on from his first open mic night he now makes a living out of his craft.
Zaryd Wilson caught up with the now Auckland-based comic on his recent trip home and talked about writing for and appearing on 7 Days, the philosophy of comedy and how he got into the game.
There came a point when Ray O'Leary realised it was never going to be quite the right time to give stand up a go.
With a masters in philosophy behind him, O'Leary was working as a bureaucrat in Wellington, writing funny thoughts and observations in a notebook all while the thought of getting into stand-up comedy lingered in the back of his mind.
"I'd been putting it off for a long time saying 'oh, I'll do it when work quiets down'," O'Leary says.
"But I realised work was never going to quiet down so I just had to do it."
So he went along to an open mic night in and, well ... "it kept rolling from there".
He soon started getting booked for gigs, performed at awards ceremonies, was a Billy T Award finalist, moved to Auckland, got comedy writing gigs and has appeared on 7 Days.
"It's been going well," O'Leary says.
That's a bit on an understatement. Some would take many more years to get where he's got.
"Compared to other art forms it's pretty lucky because I still feel like I'm learning and I'm still getting paid while I'm learning in a sense," he says.
"I'm still producing some material that I can share with the public that I'm getting paid for as I improve. Whereas if you're writing a book you can't just release a chapter and hope people buy that.
"You have to keep getting gigs and writing work and still now I don't have something reliable.
"But enough things keep popping up that I can earn a living out of it - so that's really great. Comedy's a lot closer to busking."
O'Leary left school - Cullinane College - for the University of Victoria in Wellington where he majored in philosophy, a subject he later got his masters in.
Comedian is not a job they tell you you can do with a philosophy major - but why not?
There are similarities aren't there?
"I think philosophy requires you to think creatively about things and think outside of the box and I think comedy requires that as well," O'Leary says.
"Good comedy is often compared to an argument. It's like someone's put forward their view of the thing and they'll give reasons for why it's right. In some ways they're giving a perspective on the world.
"In philosophy you're trying to reach this very serious and true conclusion whereas in comedy you adopt a position but maybe it's absurd or ridiculous and you try give arguments in a sense.
"There are other ways comedy is similar to philosophy; they both tend to be male dominated - I don't know why. And both are tough to get into, there's not a lot of opportunity."
But O'Leary loved studying it.
"I enjoyed thinking really hard and critically about really important questions that are hard to answer. Questions about the world that we all think are important but can't be answered by science.
"Everyone's got an opinion about abortion or freewill or whether God exists but actually sitting down and trying to think seriously and properly about that I think is a lot of fun."
And for a while he thought he would be an academic in the field.
"But then writing my honours I kind of got burnt out," he says.
"I was unsure about my ability to churn out unique philosophical ideas and get them published in journals.
"So I gave that up and now I'm in a career where I have to try and think of new and interesting jokes and have to put them out all the time so it's kind of a similar problem."
O'Leary certainly gets a lot of practice churning out jokes as a comedy writer.
Stand-up alone doesn't pay the bills.
He's featured on shows such as Jono & Ben and still writes for 7 Days.
O'Leary made his debut as a panellist back in February and hopes to be back later in the year.
"You get all sorts of different advice on how to succeed on the show," O'Leary says.
On his 7 Days debut he sat wedged between the show's regulars Dai Henwood and Justine Smith.
A story about surf lifesavers running out of money popped up. O'Leary sat, waited and picked his moment.
"And I said 'you know you've got a problem in your country when your lifeguards are struggling to stay afloat'.
"That was the joke."
O'Leary is one of a new breed of comics in their 20s coming through the New Zealand scene.
"I guess it depends on how you divide people up into different generations but, yeah, there was definitely the older guard ... and the people who paved the way for the rest of us and the people who are coming through."
O'Leary says there are more diverse and alternative voices in comedy.
"Which I think is beneficial for everyone. I think people like to see themselves reflected on stage."
So where's his place in this?
O'Leary deals with the dark and the taboo delivered in a minimalist "non-threatening" way.
"I'm a very heightened version of myself, very little emotion," he says.
"I'm probably not as self-deprecating as I'd like to be but often what makes me write jokes is I notice someone do something that I think is silly.
"I can be quite dark but I also think I'm non-threatening. I'm not angry, I'm not loud, I'm just quite monotonous and quiet. Some people describe me like I look like I've thought too much.
"I think the way I come across on stage is that we don't have to be worried laughing at what this guy's saying, he's almost an alien.
"That's the persona I want to give off. It's almost like I've just been born and walk on stage and I'm trying to figure out what's going on and I'm not trying to be funny, I'm just trying to give a talk about what happened and everyone's laughing and I don't understand why."
Certain subjects - sex, death, etcetera - lend themselves to comedy, O'Leary says.
"I think there's a lot of finding the taboo and going right up to the line of it. You can't go too far or else people get offended and stuff - but it's playing with taboo.
"I think it's because of the darkness that makes them funny."
Where to from here?
O'Leary might have another crack at the Billy T, he's working on a Comedy Festival solo show for next year and also has plans to ply his trade overseas at some point.
"Plan B is I guess move back to Wellington with my tail between my legs and start working for the government again. But, yeah, for now I'm doing comedy and it's been going well.
"When a gig goes well it's really, really great. There's no other feeling like it."
And maybe there's a Whanganui show sometime in the future.
"I've never performed comedy in Whanganui apart from a speech at my cousin's 21st and I did the eulogy for my granddad's funeral if you count those," O'Leary says.
"I just told stories about my granddad and someone said afterwards - it's not the best compliment I've heard - 'it's the best funeral they'd ever been to'.
"I don't know if that what I was going for but I guess I'll take it.
"I think before the next Comedy Festival my plan would be to do some shows here before ... that'd be the ideal.
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